Unvaccinated Health-Care Workers Test Emergency Standard Bounds

As OSHA enforces its emergency temporary standard aimed at shielding health-care workers from Covid-19, industry attorneys say the rapid spread of the delta variant has made that regulation all the more necessary to quell proliferation of the virus.

Complicating matters, however, a large swath of health-care workers—more than 40% of nursing home staff nationwide—weren’t fully vaccinated as of Aug. 15, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

How the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration will enforce the standard and guide employers in the face of that resistance is now the pressing issue, attorneys say.

“OSHA’s ...